HarvestEye secures Scottish distribution deal

Machine learning-driven crop insights tool HarvestEye has secured a distributorship in Scotland with agricultural and machinery supplier Agricar.

Coming ahead of harvesting season, Agricar will be responsible for the distributorship of the HarvestEye 2.0 and HarvestEye Handheld systems.

The technology, which fits to harvesting or grading equipment, is described as a cost-effective method to deliver visibility – via an online portal and daily reports – on the size, shape and mapping variability of potatoes and onions. It can deliver fast crop measurement to a high degree of accuracy in challenging conditions, including low evening sun.

Harry Tinson, general manager at HarvestEye, said: “As a premier supplier with vast experience on the needs and challenges facing Scottish farmers, Agricar is the ideal distributor to help scale our operation in Scotland. The relationship will provide the visibility and ease of access to our units to support growers with their potato precision harvesting requirements.”

HarvestEye’s accompanying Handheld version, launched earlier this year, uses the power and data insight of the system to allow customers to count and size crops during pre-harvest test digs through the tablet device.

Derek Johnston, director at Agricar, said: “At Agricar we see HarvestEye as an ideal long-term partner. The fact that we specialise in potato machinery and GPS products makes it a perfect fit to our product offering.

“HarvestEye is a relatively new product in the marketplace but we feel that it can offer added value to the potato grower by giving the customer more accurate information earlier during harvest. This information can in turn be shared with the buyer or packhouses to help speed up and streamline the whole process.”

Agricar will be exhibiting HarvestEye capabilities at the Royal Highland Show in Ingliston, Edinburgh from 20-23 June, before returning to Potatoes in Practice, the UK’s largest field-based potato event, on 8 August at the James Hutton Institute in Invergowrie, Dundee.